The Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN), and HarvestPlus, have commercialised Vitamin A Maize and Vitamin A Cassava, with a target of reaching 34 million Nigerians in eight States of the country.
The two crops have been biofortified to provide Vitamin A especially for children and pregnant women.
The project, which is funded by the Netherlands’ Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development, targets 23 million people in Imo, Oyo, Niger, and Kaduna States with Vitamin A Maize, and 11 million Nigerians in Cross River, Anambra, Osun and Nasarawa States with Vitamin A Cassava.
The Country Director of HarvestPlus, Yusuf Dollah, while speaking with journalists at the National Project Close-out ceremony of the Commercialisation of Biofortified Crops (CBC) Project, said biofortification is a process in which existing nutrition are complemented.
Dollah noted that food based approach was used, where they adopted the normal staple crops that are grown and consumed in Nigeria, to solve nutrition problems.
“So we developed these varieties of crops to have high levels of micronutrients and vitamins so that as we grow them naturally from the farms and we consume, we have access to the essential micronutrients and vitamins for us to live a healthy life.
“Since we say food with approach, this has to do with crops and if you promote, you are promoting crop and you want it to be sustainable, you also need to bring in some aspects of commercialization so that every actor should earn some income because that is what will motivate you people to remain within the value chain and continue growing, processing,” he said.
He said the project was rolled out to ensure that the seed company that multiply and sell the seeds, make some income from it, the agro-dealers in the communities that farmers buy seed from are also able to sell the seeds, then farmers, who are looking for good certified seeds, should also be able to get access to those seeds from their community agro shops.
“Then for the process, whoever is looking for quality raw materials to process product is also able to have it in our normal grid markets.
“So, this is what we’ve been able to do in this project, to bring the actors together, to strengthen the actors and ensure that everybody is able to make business out from it,” he added.
The Deputy Country Director of GAIN Nigeria, Dr Abbas Yusuf, who represented the Country Director, Micheal Ojo, said one of the things they do on the CBC is to process Vitamin A maize and Vitamin A cassava.
Yusuf said it is pertinent that when the crops are processed, they are processed in the right way to avoid food poisoning.
“One of the things that we’re doing in GAIN is to ensure that the processed foods will get to the end users with high quality, and are safe and good to eat by everyone,” he noted.
Speaking on the importance of the project, Dr Yusuf said Nigeria is one of the countries with high rate of malnutrition.
“One of the sustainable ways of addressing malnutrition is ensuring that a very essential nutrient which is vitamin A, which we see lacking from children, they get together as they grow.
“Biofortification ensures that rather than you beginning to give supplements, you have bio-fortified crops like the maize, the cassava, which are grown in the communities, which means that you harvest cassava, as you harvest maize, you already have the right component of vitamin A which can be processed and be eaten locally for the children and for the pregnant women as well,” he stated.
On his part, the Senior Project Manager, Supply Chains for Commercialisation, GAIN Nigeria, Godwin Ehiabhi, disclosed that in the last three years, they had created a lot of awareness for Nigerians to see the importance of consuming biofortified staples.
“We are not really concerned about the nutrient, people just want to get their stomach filled up, they are not really concerned what is the content of what they are eating,” he said.
He added that with the commercialisation of biofortified food, they were promoting the consumption of biofortified food for all Nigerians including children.
